Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday there’s nothing for the administration to do now that the government is shut down, and President Barack Obama should “sit back and watch.”

“I think if you’re the White House, you just sit back and watch,” Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Now with Alex Wagner” on Tuesday. “I don’t think there’s anything for you to do. I don’t think there’s anything you should do. I don’t think they will negotiate in any way on a temporary fix to this.”

Gibbs said Obama is right to hold the line on not allowing any concessions on Obamacare in government funding bills, saying it’s up to the people who made the mess to fix it. Gibbs is one of several former top Obama aides, as well as David Plouffe, who were at the White House on Monday to discuss the president’s messaging on the shutdown.

“The tea party got the Republicans into this. And some either faction of the Republican Party or the rest of the tea party is going to have to get themselves out of it,” Gibbs said.

Obama’s role as a spectator could last a while, too, Gibbs said, predicting the shutdown would continue for at least a week.

“I don’t think anything can happen unless or until we have several days of this shutdown. I mean, if you’re a Republican and you think this is a great strategy, there’s no reason for you to cave today. And if they don’t cave today, it’s probably hard to see how this unwinds before either the weekend or the beginning of next week,” Gibbs said. “I think we’re in a scenario where we’re in a shutdown for five or six days and Republicans will probably evaluate after that.”